Confessions of a Yoga Teacher – The Diary

20170827_101601by LS Harteveld

I never expected to do this again.
Not to write a diary in a notebook with the single purpose to one day publish it as a book.
The last time I did this was in 2013 for my Dutch diary de Candystop. The reason I used a notebook was the same I am using one now; I wanted something I could take with me. I don’t own a laptop, nor do I want one, and my regular diary is way too personal.
For example, it contains all sex scenes with my lover that I don’t want to be made public. I share a lot but not all. And it contains a whole lot of other information that I won’t even hint at describing. Suffice to say my diary is not something that leaves the premises. Ever.
I can’t remember if I also used the 2013 notebook because I preferred paper over typing. I do know that’s a factor now.. I’ve only just gained control over a raging internet addiction and for the first time in eight years I m close to publishing slash printing my books. All eight of them. Which is what happens if you leave your young ones alone for too long; they start to procreate.
First one was “done” in 2009. Done is a depressingly relative term as any writer going through the numerous cycles of editing – including the first highly embarrassing ones – will tell you.
Done means you have another six months to go.
But in all fairness, six months does not equal eight years. Unfortunately, manuscripts actually highly benefit from being neglected and then edited again after an eternity. My late uncle called it maturing. Or riping, as we say in Dutch. A manuscript ripens like wine, if you leave it a year in your drawer or, more likely, your harddrive.
Which means I actually did my Wait Worth 8 a favor, treating it so poorly.
Anyway, coming down with my social media addiction, I choose to stay away from my blog.
Because a blog means posting.
And posting is only a tiny micro bit removed from sharing it on social media.
And even without that… there’s something about typing that makes it more stressful compared to handwriting. So I have multiple reasons to write analogue.
One, portable without carrying your personal sex files to bars. Two, not connected to the internet (ad-dic-tion!) Three less stress than typing. And four it doesn’t interfere that much with my precious must-be-defended-at-all-cost publishing work. Which has finally after eight years of ripening, taken off.
The last time I started a book offline to avoid disturbing a then just established, or almost established, but in retrospect never established publishing routine, was 2016. Not wanting to fall into the trap of keeping a time-attention-LIFE consuming blog slash diary online I used my 1998 laptop. Which, face it, is almost as ancient as using a notebook and pen. I called the book  “Trickster” and was already feeling like THE person to write about gaming life and coming up with smart solutions, when trickster died on me. I think it was after two, three weeks. It was a quiet painless passing. If we had been dating I would have said we just stopped contacting each other. Even though I had been very much in love with Trickster! I thought Trickster was THE ONE!
It wasn’t until Danielle Laporte announced she was going to write a contemporary self-help book (where contemporary stands for: contains sexual references) that I yelled:
“WTF! That’s my guy!”
Even though I had neglected him, thought I d moved on, and that we weren’t meant to be together, I immediately took action the moment this quote “run of the mill” self-help author had been on a first date with him and posted a video how her new book was turning out different than she expected.
“I want to write about things like getting laid.”
And all I thought was:
Oh.
My.
Fucking.
God.
NOT HER!
Trickster could have passed on to anyone, without me knowing. Or had that been his whole point? Did he want me to see him with someone else?
And when I said “run of the mill” I was actually quoting myself. Because I did “save” Trickster from the hands of the most highly acclaimed self-help author of my generation, who has since then only produced three kilo agendas and brick thick self-help books. But nothing about getting laid as far as I can see.
In my rescue operation I opened my laptop, extracted Trickster, and moved him to my desktop. Although secrecy has proven to be an indispensable ingredient for my real affair, I m convinced that keeping Trickster hidden and ultimately forgetting about him, was what made him leave.
I wrote the whole Danielle Laporte episode right into Trickster. That’s where I referred to her as run of the mill.
As far as I know I m standing alone on this, as I know multiple gurus (female successful entrepreneurs) who worship the ground Danielle Laporte walks on. So don’t let my down talking hold you back. Especially not when you need a three kilo agenda.
It is questionable if Trickster was better off with me. He probably would have been world famous if I had left him with his new forever home.
Soon after I pulled Trickster back to my turf, and finished the chapter of how he almost left me, more pressing matters arose. My period was a mess and I decided to leave the tricks and start a White Tigress training and write about that instead.
They both ended up in book 8, Big; both Trickster and the White Tigress diary.
A third diary in Big is called the Virgin Diaries, which I wrote in the months before Trickster. The three diaries form the heart of the book, sandwiched by two volumes of autobiographical pornography.
Trickster now has to share his spot with two other diaries. And I did not name a whole book after him, like I originally intended.
But when it comes to getting laid?
I m absolutely fucking positive, Trickster could not have landed better.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Book 8, Big diaries and erotica, that includes the contemporary self-help book Trickster – can be bought from my publisher Lulu (Worldwide) or directly from me (Netherlands only).